


Nikandros's Sight

by StrongerThanAnySword



Category: Captive Prince - C. S. Pacat
Genre: :3, And Laurent is so unguarded now, And Nikandros watches, And he Sees, And he decides something must be done, And he knows Damen like the back of his hand, Flashback / Description of the Kingsmeet, He is a sneaky bugger, M/M, Nikandros watches, Really just nods to the canon, Trust Issues, You are safe friendos, hatred to friendship, mention of non-con, mention of rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-13
Packaged: 2018-08-12 08:39:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7928125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StrongerThanAnySword/pseuds/StrongerThanAnySword
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikandros has been watching Laurent since the coup, wondering when the betrayal would come, waiting for any move which would hurt Damen--or worse.</p><p>He sees things he really wasn't expecting.</p><p> </p><p>Multichapter, each chapter more of a blurb than anything--cliffhangers will be few to none. :) Not going to be smut, but there could be sexual instances~</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nikandros's Sight

**Author's Note:**

> (Fits between chapters 1 and 2 of The Way We Love, but is not necessary to the fic; likewise, the fic is not necessary to this one. Link --> http://archiveofourown.org/works/7045336/chapters/16023913 )

Nikandros had been watching Laurent of Vere since he met him, since the day that he had discovered that his best friend, his Exalted, was alive,  _ **alive** , _and came to understand all that that meant--the good and the bad of it.  Nikandros, to be fair, would have watched any of the  _Veretians,_ but Laurent--ah, Laurent had held a very special place in Nikandros's heart, occupying a small circle of thorny hatred, since he had begun to piece together how and why it was that his once-Prince and now-King still drew breath, a golden cuff around his wrist, pale scars standing starkly against the skin of his back.  If Damen had allowed it, Nikandros would have killed him in in the time it took to draw a breath.

Even now, months later, the sight of the Veretian prince (King now, he supposed) had a roiling mixture of hatred and disgust fighting it out within him, rising like a bout of actual, physical vomit; he staunchly wrestled it down.  Unfortunately for him, Damen was _besotted_ with Laurent.  Never mind that the last blonde he'd taken to bed had turned the entire nation on its head, never mind the scars on his back and the  _manacle_ on his wrist, never mind Nikandros's own objections, fair and patient at first and heated and insistent as time went on.  It had gotten to the point that Damen had  _ordered him_ to not speak of it again, and Nikandros--good, loyal Nikandros--had obeyed.

That didn't mean that he wasn't keeping watch.

His arms crossed, he glowered at the the smiling couple from the shadows of the library.  They were _snuggling_ together on the low couch, Damen with a book propped on his knees and Laurent with closed eyes, looking tired from a long day of pulling the countries together, or so it was said.  Nikandros didn't believe it for a moment, a faint sense of discomfort nestled in his chest.  

He had been keeping an eye on Laurent of Vere, yes indeed, watching and waiting for the slip that would certainly come.  Any day now, any moment, any time, it would...and he would be ready.

Laurent sighed then, and shifted, sleeping against Damen's side, and Nikandros came to, straightening in his spot in the shadows.  He hadn't meant to spy--he had come to interrupt Damen's paperwork for the evening, but of course Laurent had been there first.  Laurent was  _always_ there first.  And betrothal be damned, it just wasn't right.  Especially not since it was _Laurent_.

He had waited long enough.

He stepped forward, clearing his throat.  "Exalted-."

Damen looked up and smiled.  "Nikandros!"  He set his papers and the book to the side of the low table in front of him and smiled warmly.  "What is it?"

"I came to tell you that we have an answer from the Kingsmeet Guard."

A shadow fell immediately across Damen's face, looking wrong, leaving an even worse wrongness on his face when it lifted; Damen, on his guard, in a way that Nikandros had never witnessed before his time in the hellish Veretian court.  This was not the guarded measurement he wore when sparring or when on the field; this was something new, a reigning in of his emotions, a careful control that said very little about what he was thinking and feeling.

In other words, utterly un-Damen.

"What do they say?"  His tone, just as rigidly focused as his face and his body.  It was nowhere as good as the snake at his side could muster, but for Nikandros, who had known hot-headed Damen since they were young, it was deeply unnerving.  

Nikandros shrugged, then thought better of it and bowed slightly.  "They obey, of course.  They will travel soon and be here by the end of the week."

"Good."  Damen sighed and seemed to relax as he shifted, kissing the top of Laurent's head before standing.  Nikandros's lip curled in response, smoothed by the time Damen was on his feet and stretching.  Laurent yawned and stretched as well, draping his arms lazily across the back of the couch, humming.

Nikandros swallowed bile.

"I need to speak with Jord, then," Damen was saying.   _The Veretian commander_.  "He'll need to know."

"Go on, then."  Laurent yawned again.  "I will put your mess into an intelligible order."  Damen grinned, sheepish.

"Thank you."  He smiled and touched the back of Laurent's hand, lightly, as if grounding himself there.  Nikandros glowered once more at the display.

"Go."  Laurent cracked open one blue eye and smiled, still lazy.  "I'll await you after your meeting."  Damen nodded, and left them there.

As soon as Damen's footsteps faded down the hallway, Laurent was sitting up, sitting forward, looking very much awake as he rifled through Damen's papers.  Nikandros stiffened.

"What are you doing," he hissed, stepping forward, not meaning to menace necessarily, but to startle.  Here it was, the duplicity, the proof that Laurent wasn't some lovesick princeling, but a conniving, scheming, evil little...

His words and his motions, however, had little to no effect on Laurent, who didn't even look up.  "I'm trying to make sense of..."  Laurent trailed off, and if Nikandros had thought that the Veretians were pale, he'd had no idea; Laurent was turning a very unhealthy papery pallor with the faintest tinge of green.

"What is it?"  Nikandros stepped closer, glancing down at the papers.

"He's planning to change the Kingsmeet policies," Laurent breathed, sounding for the very first time in Nikandros's memory as if he was not just startled, but afraid, truly flee-the-palace terrified.  "Specifically those on violence within the boundaries.  But..."

Nikandros's chest tightened uncomfortably.  "Nobody has changed those policies in generations, since the first days of the Kingsmeet.  To try and do it-."

"It's a breach in tradition and as good a reason as any for Damen's enemies to dethrone him."  Laurent stood abruptly and turned away, and--was that a tremor?  Nikandros bared his teeth and closed the distance between them.

"Why?!"

Laurent looked up at Nikandros, pale and shaky, looking like death lukewarm, confusion plain on his face.

Nikandros realized he was gripping his sword, shaking in anger; realized that the room was bleeding into a bloody red, his gaze centered on Laurent and his primly pale face.

"Why would he do this?!  Why would he toss tradition into the dirt, why would he interfere with the Kingsmeet?  For  _you_?" he spat, and had the satisfaction of watching each of his words strike Laurent, who flinched at the venom in his voice.

"He...I..."

" _What happened that day?_ " Nikandros growled, crowding Laurent, voice terrible and promising pain.  "He came back to us, bound, looking as pale as any of  _you,_ looking for all the world like his heart had been  _pulled out of his chest,_ tears down his face, covered in blood, looking near  _death!_  He took us to this palace, he gave himself back into the keeping of liars and thieves and murderers, he  _risked the entirety of the nation for you_ , and for  _what!_ I followed my Exalted into the very jaws of death without question, but now I would like to know  _why!"_

Laurent was looking faint, and indeed, reached out for the backing as he practically fell into the couch cushions.  "I-I..."  He took in a deep breath, swallowing, eyes closed.  

Nikandros felt something in him snap.  "I will not ask again!" he shouted, knowing it was death, knowing that this would be the thing that killed him, but needing to hear-.

"I let him take me!"

Nikandros stilled at the outburst.

"The Regent," Laurent said, voice more crackle than intended noise, "He...he told Damen about me, about what I was, and he knew I'd gone to give myself up, because of the child, and when Damen arrived he...he told him...everything."  Laurent's voice broke, and Nikandros stared, stared at the icy Veretian, whose shoulders were up as if expecting a blow, whose face was coloring in red blotches, whose eyes were shining with tears.  

"About what."  Nikandros felt like he was watching himself ask, like it was all a dream, but the dread in his chest said that it wasn't.

"About...about me," Laurent finished lamely.  "And Damen started to fight them--he drew his sword and he was fighting them, and there was blood, and some of them didn't get up, but then they wrestled him down and they were going to take his  _life,_ Nikandros of Akielos, they were  _going to kill him in front of me_ and I couldn't let it happen,  _I wasn't going to watch him die!"_  His voice was shrill, as one losing hold on reality, and Nikandros understood that he was not in the library right now.  "He made me...beg, to spare Damen, and I did, I got to my knees and I begged him, in front of Damen, in front of everyone, and _I didn't care_ because I knew that if I did, Damen would live, so I did it, I did it,  ** _I did it-_** "  His hands were a blur across his skin, raising welts, beads of blood...

Recognizing at once the panic in Laurent's voice and the fact of darkly lurking secrets--secrets that Nikandros did not need to hear or know of right now--Nikandros did the only thing he could; he sat in front of Laurent on the low reading table and swiftly delivered a blow across the King's face.

Laurent looked up in utter shock, blue eyes wide and watering, a painful-looking redness already appearing on his cheek.  One hand wandered up to touch it, and he winced, hiccoughing.

Nikandros grabbed Laurent's shoulders, stilling that hand and the other, scratching across all his available skin, and he  _shook_.

"Listen to me!" he snarled, dread curling in his stomach.  "Listen to me, damn you!"

That broke the spell; Laurent buried his face in his hands, but he stopped yelling, and Nikandros gladly traded his shrill voice for the shaking wracking his body.

Nikandros let go as if burned.

"You mean to tell me," he said after a moment that lasted for seven, "you mean to tell me that...that there was nothing else?  Nothing hanging over him?  There was nothing greater at risk?  We  _marched up to this palace knowing we would die_ _for_ _you and you alone?"_

Laurent's broken sob-laugh confirmed it.

Nikandros scrubbed his face with his hand.

"Why?"

Laurent laughed again, and it was a bitter sound.  "I ask myself daily why he would do such a thing."  He looked up, eyes rimmed in red, looking for all intents and purposes as if he had shattered upon a thousand well-stressed fault lines.  "The only conclusion I can come to is that..."

"That he loves you."  Nikandros's voice was soft, and the words--no matter how much discomfort they caused him--felt right in his chest, felt like the truth.   He had seen it every single day, every moment that they were together, and now even more clearly after the Regent's death.  Laurent nodded miserably.

They sat in silence for a long moment.

"And you?"

Laurent's eyebrows drew together in confusion.

"Do you...care for him, too?"

Watching Laurent's face was like watching Damen's had been, but the opposite, like thunderstorms and doom rolling away from the plain and letting the sun shine through, a peculiar light springing into Laurent's eyes--a light Nikandros had seen many times in those same eyes, but now he understood what it was; even now, sniffling, shaking Laurent was so in love with Damen that it was torturous.

He really and truly wanted Damen to be kept safe.  To be happy.

Nikandros stood, backing away slightly even as Laurent was nodding, his own eyes on the floor, and Laurent, off-balance, looked up in confusion.

"I laid hands on you, Exalted," Nikandros managed, drawing his sword and flipping it to hold the blade, offering it to Laurent.  "And I submit my life as punishment, by the laws of our land."

Laurent made a small noise of understanding, and the sword disappeared from his hand.  Nikandros closed his eyes and swallowed, hard.

"The laws of the land are malleable."

Nikandros's eyes sprung open in surprise.  He looked up at the King of Vere.

He was smiling.  Mockingly, sarcastically, but he was definitely smiling.

"I pardon your oversight, Nikandros of Akielos."  Laurent paused, turning the sword to offer its hilt back to Nikandros.  "On the condition that you do not tell Damen about what has transpired."  He paused again, and Nikandros nodded numbly.

Laurent's smile turned wicked.  "Does all of this mean that you will cease spying on us?"

Nikandros felt, suddenly, as if he had been outmaneuvered, even though he was holding the sword once more and Laurent was now unarmed.  He sputtered.  "H-how-?"

Laurent laughed.  A real, honest laugh.  "You people are  _so_ easily scandalized."  He grinned.  "You make some very funny noises when you are, too."

Nikandros began to blush.  "So all of the times...?"  A hundred scenes flashed before his eyes; wandering hands, heated kissing, instances that had had him fleeing whatever room he'd been spying in as fast as his legs could take him.  If Damen couldn't handle the scrawny and _naked_ Prince of Vere alone, he'd reasoned, there was nothing he could do for him.

"Not  _all_ of the times," Laurent said in the present, still grinning.  "But most of them."

"Why did Damen not...?"

"Take notice?"  Laurent's grin grew.  "He is very easily distracted."

Nikandros's blush was radiating heat from his face.  He busied himself by shoving the sword into his sheath.

Laurent chuckled and stood, gathering Damen's papers.  "I have some snooping to do before Damen comes to find me."  He smirked.  "Do try not to eavesdrop tonight, won't you?"  And he turned, and his chiton swished, and with something that sounded suspiciously like a very soft "thank you," he was gone.

Nikandros felt, at once, both leagues better about Laurent and newly respectful of him, trading one deep and dark fear for a far more practical one.

 _Thank the gods that they can't conceive children,_ he counseled himself, heaving a deep sigh, feeling relief at the thought.   _The nation would never survive it._

He slowly left the library, resolving as he went to break into his stash of griva.  He needed to get very, very drunk, and hopefully pass out.

A gently whistled Veretian tune echoed down the hallway.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, writing Nikandros is a lot harder than I thought! I hope I did him justice, though. ^_^ YES, Laurent was really having a breakdown, but also YES to him being V. Skilled In Turning A Situation Around given any opportunity.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you guys like this! I've been working on it for quite a while. ^_^


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